I have not updated this travel series for a long time, but Janine from My Pennies, My Thoughts contacted me to get tips about traveling around Europe for 6 weeks, and I wanted to share them with you too!
You can check previous posts about the US, Guatemala or Morocco as well.
I wrote a guest post a few months back on Eyes on the Dollar about how to have a cheap European holiday, for more general information about flights and hotels, you can head there.
Today, I want to talk about the UK. It is a great destination for so many reasons. First, they speak English which should make things easier for the traveling debutant. Then, there are lots of cool places to visit, London of course, but also Wales, the South Coast, Scotland, Oxford, Bath, Stonehenge, Shakespeare’s birthplace… History, nature and culture, all in one. And even though the UK does not shine internationally for its fine cuisine, you can feast on oysters on the coast, have a hearty Sunday roast in a 100 year old pub, or try about any international food in London.
Best time to visit the UK
If I was a real French, I would say the summer in the UK lasts for less than a week, but that is just a myth. From April to late September, you can enjoy a mild weather and not too much rain. The rest of the year is great to visit the cities, there is always something fun going on (ice skating rink, Christmas lights, opera season…) but the countryside should be cold and wet.
Planning a cheap holiday in the UK
Cheap accommodation in the UK
Finding decent priced accommodation can be hard, and lodging will be the most important part of your budget. You can try Airbnb and rent a whole house or flat (yes, it’s a flat over there, get used to it!), or look for special offer on chain hotels. Travelodge has two or three sales per year, with rooms starting at £9, or $15. This is a great deal, for a clean room with private bath. You can subscribe to their newsletter a few months before your trip to make sure you don’t miss the offer.
Money Saving Expert is another place to look for deals, they list most hotel deals, even the one that starts at £1 per night in central London and I never manage to get :).
Be careful though, those deals are non refundable and you have to know your dates in advance.
Most other chains offer 60 days early bird deals, and like Travelodge, you can sleep four people in a family room, adding to the savings.
I would recommend Airbnb for extended stays though, so you can cook your meals.
Cheap transportation in the UK
If you are just going to London, you want to avoid renting a car. There is a congestion charge, like a toll, that you have to pay daily to enter the city. Parking is scare and getting used to double decker buses driving on the left side of the road takes some time. Public transport is efficient and gets your everywhere. Buy an Oyster card, top it up with a few pounds and enjoy bus rides for £1.10 and tube for $2.20. The Oyster card will never charge you more than the price of a daily pass, so after 3 or 4 trips, you stop being charged and can ride for free for the rest of the day.
If you are going out of the city, you can buy a day ticket, with a round trip and unlimited transport within London, at a reduced price. Check National Rail for more information, tickets are cheaper when bought in advance.
Megabus and National Express are the main bus companies, Megabus is a low cost option with rates starting at £1, and the now offer bus fares to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam starting at £10.
The Eurostar gets to Paris in only two hours, and the tickets are for sale 90 days in advance, which is when you should buy them to get the best fare.
If you want to rent a car, Enterprise has a good deal under £40 for a small car from Friday morning until Monday morning.
Cheap and free attractions in the UK
One site to check is 2 for 1 London that offers… yes, you guessed right, half price tickets to major London attractions if you get there by train. You need to print the voucher online. It includes the popular London Eye, Tower of London, or the amazing Kew Gardens.
Most museums in London are free, like the National Gallery, the British Museum or the Science Museum. If you have kids, they will love the British war museum, which is free as well.
A little research online goes a long way, as many other great places are free, from the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh to the Royal Air Force museum in Shropshire. Other offer a free day per week, so you can schedule other visits around it.
If you visit London, you can work your way around the normal bus lines instead of buying the hop on- hop off tours, with an Oyster card (see transportation) you can see the city for a quarter of the price.
Cheap eats in the UK
Pub food is usually inexpensive if you go for the lunch specials, or you can check Money Saving Experts for a list of chain restaurants who have special offers. Whetherspoon pub chain have good deals on traditional English breakfasts for example.
Eating on the markets is also a good option, Borough Market in London is incredible to visit, and they have several food stalls serving seafood, hot sandwiches or ready meals.
Outside the capital, try the fish and chips shops, or the multitude of Indian and Chinese buffets for a cheap filling meal.
What other travel tips can you recommend to Janine for a week in London?
This post was featured on the Outlier Model, Club Thrifty, thank you!
I’m taking some notes from this post in case I decide to plan a trip to the UK. I’m sure I’ll get there sometime, just not sure when. There’s just so many places I want to go.
So little time! If you can hold it until you can get several weeks off, it is much better to fly once and visit a few countries.
Love this post! We really want to go to Europe and will keep this post in mind.
We spent our honeymoon in London and Ireland. The majority of the time was in Ireland as we spent just four days in London. My suggestions would be to try to get outside of London for a day or two to see more than just the city and to avoid renting a car like you said. The public transportation is great and got us everywhere we wanted. Now we want to go back and spend more time in Britain and go to Scotland.
The countryside is really beautiful, especially Scotland. And the kids will love all the haunted castles and monster stories.
I’m with John. While I liked London, getting away from there was the highlight of our trip. We especially liked the Lake District, Bath, and the Festival in Edinburgh.
BTW, thanks for the AirBnB link. I’m planning a trip to northern Michigan (beautiful beaches and wineries) this summer and completely forgot that was an option! You just saved me about $200/night….and no, I’m not splitting it with you ;-).
If you register with my tell a friend link I get enough for a night in Guatemala 🙂
We drove all around lake Michigan two summers ago and had a beautiful 4th of July with fireworks over the lake, camping on a little beach with no one else. Can’t seem to remember the wine though!
I spent a few days in London, But haven’t really travelled around the UK. This fall we are doing more of mainland Europe, but one day we will get back to the UK.
Your destinations are much cheaper! I thought I would always keep the UK for later but since I ended up living there I took advantage to visit.
I was born in Ireland, and have spent a lot of time in Ireland and somehow I have never made it over to England. It’s on my to-do list, but other parts of Europe always seem to trump it for me. When I finally get around to it I’ll be sure to keep these tips in mind!
Same here, until I got a job there I had only been to London once, but during the 3 years I spent in the UK I grew quite fond of the country.
Love this post Pauline! Going to London is on my bucket list and I cannot wait to visit! Someday, I will make it over there 🙂
It is an amazing place, I hope you get a change to go.
Bookmarked for future reference! No trip planned to UK right now, but definitely a goal to visit. Thanks for sharing your tips.
I loved living in the UK!! I lived in a small town in about 20 minutes outside of Birmingham. I instantly made a lot of new friends and every weekend we would visit the small towns for the shops and the outdoor markets. One weekend I took the train on my own to Windsor for a weekend. I had been there many years before and just had to go again. I love that area. Bath is one of my favorites as well.
And the fact that you can fly from the UK to pretty much anywhere in Europe for a weekend for next to nothing was awesome! I went to Barcelona, Germany, Dublin, Paris, Madrid and Rome.
The abundance of low cost companies going anywhere in Europe is a real plus indeed. Making friends is the one thing I struggled with, I did have friends but most of them were French or foreigners, my colleagues were polite (or plain bitches) but never friends.
This is great! I went to London in 2007, but it was a school trip, so it all went so fast. I do remember that we lived in Bayswater, right besides Hyde Park. Can`t remember the name of the hotel, but it was supercheap, and the rooms were spacious, and breakfast included, (continental breakfast though), but it saved us a lot of money by eating at the hotel. So I`d recommend that!! We went to a lot of museums free of charge, and I loved walking around in Hyde Park!
I really want to go to London again, this time with my BF, but I don`t have much money, so this was just the post for me!:-)
from Norway it will look very cheap anyway 🙂
I actually went to school in Gran Canaria then, so I compared it with canarian living. and it was still cheap:-P
It would be kind of cool to see the village near England that my family is named after, but I don’t think I could justify an entire trip to a country just for that. And I can’t think of anything else I could see there that I’m not satisfied just looking at a picture online.
I’ve been to the U.K. several times on business and have to say that it’s an interesting place and I would love to return someday but on vacation rather than business. My two other favorite places in Europe would be Spain and France. I’ve been there but it’s a bucket list thing to return to both and hopefully spend a few weeks in each of them!
So much to do! A house swap is a good idea if you can take a few weeks at a time, to get to live somewhere and explore around. We toured over 20 countries in 6 months last summer in Europe and it was exhausting.
That one week summer wasn’t a myth last year Pauline, one week is an exaggeration!!
haha at least I didn’t say it!
The UK has been on my list of places to visit for sometime. I’ll have to keep this bookmarked for when the time comes!
Thanks! We’ll be in London for a few days – will check out that 2 for 1 (not sure what attractions we want to see while there but will definitely bookmark that site).
If I ever manage to get over this fear of flying I’d love to take a trip to the British Isles. Mainly I’d love to see Stonehenge and London, I’m a big history nerd. Thanks for sharing these tips Pauline.
When we make another trip to Europe, the UK will probably be our first stop. I am strangely fascinated with the royals, and would love to visit Buckingham palace. I also would love to try the fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. We probably have another couple of years before we would be going. We are waiting until our daughter can appreciate it.
I love how most of the museums are free in London. I spent many hours broswing the collections when I went. I also ate a lot of meals in Chinatown because the local pub food wasn’t exciting. There are some great Indian restaurants too.
London is a completely international city – we stayed last week in Putney (SW London) and I am sure I could have been in France, there was so much French spoken. Or Spanish, Italian, German that I recognised easily or no doubt many other languages that I didn’t!
There is much to be seen – our favourite was HMS Belfast, an 11,000 ton cruiser built in 1939 and now permanently moored near Tower Bridge. Then there is the British Museum where you can find a lot of history from around the globe (an advantage of an imperial past!).
But a warning – London is by far the largest city in the EU (second only to Istanbul in Europe) and this means that some things take quite a long time to get to and there can be crowds.
Take a trip on the Thames up to Greenwich, go on the London Eye, up the Shard. Or take one of the bus tours that are always very informative.
But there is much to be seen in the rest of the UK too! And that is very different to London.
thanks for the tips John! HMS Belfast is a great attraction and the kids would love it.
Thanks for sharing this invaluable info with us. We have only just come across your blog and think its a great resource
thank you Mike!